Jim Michalak's Boat Designs

(1February 2011)This issue will be about knockdown recovery. The 15
February issue will show a way of mounting a windsurfer sail on a small
boat.

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BOATBUILDING FOR BEGINNERS (AND BEYOND)

is out now, written by me and edited by Garth Battista of Breakaway Books. You might find it at
your bookstore. If not check it out at the....

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Left:

It's summer in Australia and Ken White is sliding his AF3 into the
waters there. She was built by Phillipe Patacca in Melbourne (see
his webpage at www.buildwoodenboats.com.au). Looks sleek. I think
the main cabin bulkhead was moved aft a bit for longer
cabin/shorter cockpit.

Contents:

†

Contact info:

Knockdown Recovery 2

RECAP....

In the last issue I presented an essay about knockdown recovery
demonstrated by Herb McLeod with his AF3. This year Max Wawrzyniak
completed an AF3 in St. Louis not far from here. One weekend we went
out for a boat camp at Calylye Lake. On that Saturday there was no
significant wind and we decided to take advantage of the calm
conditions by doing a practice capsize of his AF3 (shown below with a
classic 2hp Neptune mounted).

On reason I was looking forward to the test was to scope out the
situation which Norm Wolf ran into with his Normsboat where the
capsized boat floated nicely on its side and was easy to right but had
its centerline slot pretty close to the water. Here is a photo of the
situation.

Few knockdowns happen in calm conditions of course, and that open slot
might look inviting to a large wave. When I made the first boat like
this about ten years ago, a Bolger Jinni modified to have a small slot
top cabin, I was careful to add segmented hard covers over the slot
when sailing in rough conditions. I never capsized that boat and can't
say how it would have done. But I feel the slot was covered
sufficiently to minimize the effect of waves. I did similar designs
like Pencilbox and AF2 and showed the plywood slot covers on the
drawings but none of the builders built them. I'll admit that
hardcovers are a pain. Eventually everyone moves towards soft covers
and that is what Norm and Max use. I'm not sure how effective a fabric
slot cover would be in keeping the waves out but I'm pretty sure it
would be a lot better than nothing. Remember that the cover is not
supposed to keep the water out for hours but just for a few minutes
while the skipper swims around and rights the boat.

For any slot cover, the mast is something of a problem in that it is
mounted on the side of the slot and would need to protrude through the
cover if the cover were used while sailing. It was fairly easy to make
a slot it my plywood slot covers. I think someone handy with a sewing
machine could do the same with a soft cover but that is only
speculation.

THE CAPSIZE...

Here is what we did. The AF3 was beached and we removed the motor and
all the loose things, although Max is much better at secure stowage
than most of us. The boat was walked into waist deep water, parallel to
the shore, and anchors run out from the bow and stern. The halyard was
secured to the mast and its free end given to me close to the shore. So
I could pull the boat over with the halyard while the anchors held the
boat in place.

The sail was stowed to keep tangles to a minimum but the sail and boom
can have an effect on the result. I would expect the boat would be
slightly less stable due to the weight of the sail and boom up high.
Once the boat is knocked down the boom and sail can help float the boat
and keep the boat from going turtle. In fact that effect is really
strong with a lug sail who's yard acts like a float out on the top of
the mast. Then when it comes time to right the boat it is very very
important to totally release the sheet because if water pools in the
sail as you try to raise it off the water the weight of that water can
make the boat much harder to right. (There can be other effects.
Remember wind surfers? You never see them any more but 15 years ago
they were all the rage. One day I was out sailing when a young woman
fell off a windsurfer nearby. She climbed back on and raised the sail
with the rope. "Did you see that!" she exclaimed. "What?" says I.
"There were five fish in that sail when I pulled it up!" says she.} And
don't forget that if you raise the boat upright with the sheet tight
that boat might sail off without you!

Max sat in his boat in his usual sailing position while I tugged it
over. He has a tilt angle indicator on his bulkhead although it maxes
out at 40 degrees, I think.

I pulled it over and thought in a subjective way that the maximum
righting force came at about 20 degrees which is what I expected.
Almost any unballasted sharpie seems to behave like that. I continued
to pull until the cockpit coaming was about to go under and flood the
cockpit. Max said that was at about the limit of his gauge, 40 degrees.
I was surprised that the boat still had substantial righting ability at
that point unlike my old Jinni which capsized twice in tis career, both
times it seems like way before any water came over the rail. But the
AF3 was still hanging in there and you might be able to recover right
up until then. Max had covers over his oarports which leaked slightly -
a good indication that it is time to release the sheet although I can't
imagine anyone seriously sailing one of these over 20 degrees of heel
in a regular way.

Next I released the tension on the halyard so the boat rolled back
upright. Warning! If you ever do a test like this give the skipper lots
of warning because the boat rolls upright very quickly and the ride
inside the boat can be rather violent!

Max checked things over and all was OK for the test to a full capsize.
I tugged on the halyard and at about 45 degrees of heel the tension on
the halyard was about zero. Over it came and I grabbed the mast when it
approached horizontal and Max jumped out of the flooding cockpit. The
righting moment continued in a negative way indicating the boat might
turtle but when the mast tip hit the water it settled on its side like
this:

Max righted the boat in an instant. He said there was nothing to it.
Norm said there was nothing righting Normsboat and Herb said there was
nothing to righting his AF3.

Once righted Max climbed back into the boat using the step hole he had
cut into his rudder. It worked very well and I am going to show such a
step hole in all future boats. The hole has no noticable effect on
sailing.

Max bailed it out and that takes a while. There was no water in the
cabin or stern locker but it was maybe 6" deep in the cockpit. In a
real capsize this would be a critical time since the water in the
flooded cockpit would roll around with each wave and make the boat a
lot less stable. It is important to have a good bailing bucket handy
and secured to the boat if you are sailing in capsize conditions.

When it was all squared away we capsized it again so I could get an
idea of the effort needed to right it. Not much required. With Jinni it
took my weight on the leeboard to right the boat but with AF3 I never
got that far. When I waded around the stern I grabbed the chine and
pushed on the bottom and up she came.

WHAT I THINK IT ALL MEANS....

I'm going to draw a narrower slot in future designs and go back to
showing the plywood slot covers.

One question I have to ask myself is if a bit of added ballast will
make these designs self righting. Not with the crew inside because that
can be a very difficult situation to scope out in every way, but with
the empty boat righting itself after the capsize and the crew is
swimming. Then the boat self rights by itself before waves have a
chance to flood into the slot. The crew doesn't need to swim except to
get to the rudder toe slots and back into the boat. Then it is bail
time. From what I have seen the amount of ballast needed might not be
much, maybe less that 50 pounds. Maybe less if the weight is mounted on
the tip of the leeboard. But you can't always plan on the leeboard
being down and the tip ballast might make the board very hard to pull
up. You can of course see a great danger in such a boat in that it
might sail off without you very quickly so on second thought it isn't
such a good idea. Then again, that situation is no different from the
present where you must have the sheet loose and have a good grip on the
boat when it pops upright.

But it would not be a major effort to find out. I might check it out
using the Hullforms program but even better would be to wait until the
warm water returns and Max gets bored with sailing on a calm day. Then
we haul it over again and see how much weight is needed to make it
right by itself. Luckily Max is a good sport.

UPDATE 2007...

...I heard of three capsizes with swampings this year, two in AF3 and
one in a Frolic2. What they all had in common was someone standing in
the open slot top at the time. Clearly that won't work - the weight has
to be in the cockpit and the slot well covered and secured.

LADYBUG CAPSIZE UPDATE:

Chuck Leinweber of duckworksmagazine.com did a practice capsize at his
Texas messabout this past year, took photos, and wrote up the
experience:

"I wanted to add some notes to the pictures of the Ladybug capsize
test:

It's hard to tell, but the bottom drops off quickly here and the boat
never touched. Sometimes it looks like it might be sitting on the
bottom, but it was happily bobbing in the waves even when completely on
it's side. It took a surprising bit of effort to pull the boat over
even though it was entirely stripped of gear.

Once on it's side, the boat floated on the yardarm with the hull high
in the water. That is the tiller in the air since the rudder flopped to
starboard.

Now I start to try to bring it back up. I probably should have done it
the other way so that I could have pulled the leeboard, but I guess in
a real knock-down, you don't get to choose.

Now I'm grabbing the gunwale and am putting some weight on it. - that
did not work, so I climbed on the mast - at this point the yardarm went
under and may have hit the bottom. Anyway, I swung myself over the
side.....

...and hanging onto the gunnel, easily tipped the boat back upright.

I tried to simulate getting back in the boat in deep water by bending
my knees and pulling myself in with my arms only. This was surprisingly
easy.

There was a bit of water in the cockpit, but that was easily bailed. I
think the boat would have sailed that way unless it was very brisk.

Skip Johnson helped me bail the boat out. The hatches were built a
little oversized to accommodate an ice chest (yes, we are spoiled) but
only leaked a few tablespoons of water into the flotation chambers. Now
we pack our gear in dry bags when we go cruising."

MORE PONDERING...

If you are going to sail in capsize conditions you really need to:

...Practice a capsize until you can right the boat and get going again.
Practice usually happens in mild conditions and in real capsize
conditions things will be worse. Then again the fear factor in a real
capsize will help your strength and quickness.

...Make sure all your gear is well secured. If not you will lose it. In
this catagory would be important boat parts like your rudder and mast,
both of which may leave your boat if not well secured in position if
the boat is sideways or inverted.

...Keep bailing equipment handy and secured to the boat. I think that a
couple of scoops made from gallon jugs might be best, one tied to each
side of the hull so you won't have to reach across a flooded boat to
get a scoop. Should be large enough to bail a good amount of water with
one hand because you will need the other hand to hold on to the boat.
Should not be so small that it will take a long time to bail.

...Give a lot of thought to righting and reboarding the boat. I would
suggest having lines that allow you to pull down on the wale from the
bottom even if you can't reach the wale or stand on a leeboard. Also
seriously consider the slot in the rudder to give a toe hold to
reboard. Most smaller boats if swamped will be too unstable to reboard
over the side - the water in the boat will slosh towards you as you try
to hoist yourself over the wale, recapsizing the boat.

Caroline

CAROLINE, SAILBOAT, 18' X 6', 750 POUNDS EMPTY

Caroline started as a blend of Philsboat and Frolic2. The idea was
for a little more cabin room than Philsboat and hopefully with the
same seakeeping ability that Frolic2 has demonstrated. I made it a
little deeper and wider and with a longer cabin than Philsboat. It
all added up to about 30% more cabin volume. But it is also more boat
to build and pay for and haul so the other boats, which are lighter
and cheaper, still havenít been made obsolete as far as I am
concerned.

One interesting side to this sort of house design is that if you add
a motor well, as this one has, the stern gets pretty busy since the
only way you can run a normal tiller to the rudder is under the aft
deck. To get a good swing of the rudder that aft deck needs to be
short and wide if that motor is to live there too. I think I have it
all crammed in there such that it might work but even so the rudder
is well offset to one side, as it was successfully done with
Philsboat.

The builder wanted a yawl rig (she wants to coastal cruise the Maine
coast) but I added the mizzen as I do now, keeping the basic balance
such that you could sail it without the mizzen.

You can see that these Birdwatcher cabins are simple and roomy.

There was another Caroline built in Texas, Chris's EZBake. It was a
veteran of the Texas200 in its first year fitted with a Chinese lug
sail that was replaced later with the blueprint rig. I got a chance
to ride in it for a few hours at the Sail Oklahoma 2010. Here is
Chris anchored by the stern on a lee shore at our picnic beach...

And again after the picnic after returning to the home beach...

A note about Chris's Caroline. He has enlarged his stern well to be
the full width well I normally like to use. But it won't usually work
with a Birdwatcher because with this style cabin the tiller must run
under the stern deck and into the cabin. If you do that with a large
full width motor well you will end up with a long slot for the tiller
which is a danger in a knockdown since water could come through it
and swamp the cabin. So what you have to do, which is what I did on
the Petesboat design and which Chris reinvented here, is to put a
short control arm on the side of the rudder and control that with a
push/pull stick that runs into the cabin through a small hole in the
aft bulkhead on centerline. So this boat has a simple push/pull stick
control which takes a while to get used to and has less precise
control since the control arm is maybe 18" long instead of maybe 60"
long for the standard tiller. Chris had it all figured correctly and
feels like I do that the only cure is a geared tiller linkage like I
drew on Petesboat. So far Chris has opted for simplicity.

Looks like six sheets of 1/4", ten sheets of 3/8" and three sheets of
1/2"". Taped seam construction.

Prototype News

Some of you may know that in addition to the one buck catalog
which now contains 20 "done" boats, I offer another catalog of 20
unbuilt prototypes. The buck catalog has on its last page a list
and brief description of the boats currently in the Catalog of
Prototypes. That catalog also contains some articles that I wrote
for Messing About In Boats and Boatbuilder magazines. The Catalog
of Prototypes costs $3. The both together amount to 50 pages for
$4, an offer you may have seen in Woodenboat ads. Payment must be
in US funds. The banks here won't accept anything else. (I've got
a little stash of foreign currency that I can admire but not
spend.) I'm way too small for credit cards.

I think David Hahn's Out West Picara is the winner of the Picara
race. Shown here on its first sail except there was no wind.
Hopefully more later. (Not sure if a polytarp sail is suitable
for a boat this heavy.

Here is a Musicbox2 I heard about through the grapevine.

This is Ted Arkey's Jukebox2 down in Sydney. Shown with the
"ketchooner" rig, featuring his own polytarp sails, that is shown
on the plans. Should have a sailing report soon.

And the Vole in New York is Garth Battista's of
www.breakawaybooks.com, printer of my book and Max's old outboard
book and many other fine sports books. Beautiful job! Garth is
using a small lug rig for sail, not the sharpie sprit sail shown
on the plans, so I will continue to carry the design as a
prototype boat. But he has used it extensively on his Bahamas
trip towed behind his Cormorant. Sort of like having a compact
car towed behind an RV.

And a Deansbox seen in Texas:

The prototype Twister gets a test sail with three grown men, a
big dog and and big motor with its lower unit down. Hmmmmm.....

Jackie and Mike Monies of Sail Oklahoma have two Catboxes
underway....

Tom Wolf has completed the first Toon2 that I know of and was
waiting for some good testing weather...